TRAVELLING JUDGES in BYZANTINE MACEDONIA (10Th–11Th C.)

Зборник радова Византолошког института L, 2013 Recueil des travaux de l’Institut d’études byzantines L, 2013 UDC: 347.962(495.02)"09/10" DOI: 10.2298/ZRVI1350335M ROSEMARY MORRIS (University of York, UK) TRAVELLING JUDGES IN BYZANTINE MACEDONIA (10th–11th c.) While it is often unclear where court cases were held in the Byzantine provinces, evidence from the Athonite archives for the region of Macedonia suggests the imperial judges heard cases in specifi c ‘assize towns’ and other places as well as in the theme capital of Thessalonike. Based on case-studies from the Athonite archives and using the occurrence of the term kathisma as an indication of the existence of an provincial administrative and judicial centre, it is suggested that regular judicial circuits still took place in the 10th and 11th centuries. The imperial government thus demonstrated its concern for the provision of justice in the provinces in the same way as had its Roman predecessors. Keywords: judges, Athonite archives, assize towns, kathisma, Macedonia. Continuity in many aspects of Byzantine provincial administration from the time of Basil II onwards was long ago established in Ljubomir Maksimović’s semi- nal study of the Palaiologan period in which he demonstrated that the administrative units of the thirteenth century were often the heirs of local units already in existence. But after the disruption of the Fourth Crusade, many of the characteristic offi cials commonly found in the Byzantine provinces in earlier periods disappeared, amongst them the kritai, the professional judges who heard cases in the provinces. In the tenth and eleventh centuries, however, these offi cials can still be found; the particularly rich documentation provided by the Athonite archives allows their activities to be ob- served in the region of Thrace and Macedonia, in particular in what came to be desig- nated the theme of Boleron/Strymôn/Thessalonike and, sometimes, in the very urban centres which continued as administrative centres in the later period. Kassandreia in the Chalkidiki; Hierissos, just to the north of the Holy Mountain of Athos; Serres, Philippi and, of course, Thessalonike are all locations where judicial activities are recorded in the eleventh century; most of them (with the exception of towns lost to the Bulgarians) remained important administrative centres in the late empire.1 1 L. Maksimović, The Byzantine Provincial Administration under the Palaiologoi, Amsterdam 1988, 33, 53–59, 72–5, 78–9, 237–8. For the evolution of the theme of Boleron/Strymôn/Thessalonike, 336 ЗРВИ L (2013) 335–345 One of the most striking aspects of Byzantine provincial justice — in the regions for which we have archival evidence, at least — is that litigants knew exactly where to go to fi nd it. Of course, many disputes in this region were settled on a local level without any recourse to imperial justice and some, such as those between monastic houses on Mt Athos, were settled by judicial structures which, though they mirrored those of the Byzantine State, had been removed from its jurisdiction. Complaints were often brought to the Great Synaxeis or ‘gatherings’ of monks held at Easter and on the 15th August (and sometimes at other times of year if need be) in the Church of the Mese at Karyes, the administrative ‘capital’ of Athos and were ‘tried’ by the Protos and a group of senior hêgoumenoi.2 But other cases, especially those concerning lands outside the borders of the Holy Mountain and concerning matters involving the secu- lar authority were heard elsewhere. Given that many of the documents of the Athonite archives do not record where cases were initially heard, although there is often interesting detail given about subsequent offi cial visits to specifi c disputed lands (to establish, or re-establish boundaries for example), it is tempting to assume that most cases for which we have some record — by defi nition those of some signifi cance to one or more of the parties — were heard in Thessalonike. In fact, there are enough indications amongst them to suggest not only that judges, far from sitting remotely in their thematic capitals, made their way to specifi c locations to hear cases, but also that they went out on recognised circuits. The existence of ‘assize tours’, that is regular hearings of legal cases in specifi c locations, is a well-known feature of Roman administration. Provincial governors and their legates did not permanently hold court in the capital cities of their provinces, but held assizes in certain privileged towns. In the province of Asia, for example, in the 2nd century AD, the pro-consul and his three legates held assizes at 14 centres during their tours of duty. The sixth-century Justinianic Digest envisaged that hearings would be held in each ‘assize centre’ once a year and would be supplemented by standing courts held by Roman offi cials in provincial capitals. The evidence for such local courts taking place on a regular basis is particularly rich from Late Antique Egypt, but it can be supplemented by evidence from most of the other pro-consular provinces.3 If, therefore, it could be demonstrated that similar arrangements still existed in the tenth and eleventh centuries, this would not only provide a useful example of the reach of the imperial administration into the provinces and indeed, the concern of the imperial administration for the promulgation of justice there, but would also suggest an important area of continuity with the administration of the Late Antique Empire.4 see ODB, vol.1, p. 304. My thanks to Robert Jordan for linguistic insights on the Greek of the Athonite documents and to Ruth Macrides and Annika Asp-Talwar for facilitating access to TLG. 2 See the Typikon of Constantine Monomachos, Actes du Prôtaton, ed. D. Papachryssanthou, Archives de l’Athos, VII, Paris 1975, no. 8 (1045). This only applied to cases concerning lands within the Holy Mountain itself. 3 It is a pleasure here to note the pioneering work of my one-time colleague, Graham Burton: G.P. Burton, Proconsuls, Assizes and the Administration of Justice under the Empire, JRS 65 (1975): http://www.jstor.org/stable/370065 (accessed 14. iv. 2014) 92–94, 96–100. For a general discussion of provincial justice, see J. Crook, Law and Life of Rome, London 1967, 70–87. 4 In contrast to the view expressed in L. Neville, Authority in Byzantine Provincial Society, 900– 1100, Cambridge 2004, 3: ‘Aside from maintaining sovereignty and extracting wealth, the administration did little to govern provincial society’. ROSEMARY MORRIS: Travelling Judges in Byzantine Macedonia (10th–11th c.) 337 The documents from the Athonite archives which clearly specify where cases were heard by someone described as a kritês (or dikastês) are, admittedly, few.5 In many important cases, we are simply not told where a court was held. And such phrases as ‘in the past they had often had recourse to local judges and stratêgoi and to judges in Constantinople’6, which clearly indicate long-standing and signifi cant disputes, are no help in determining exactly where the ‘local judges’ actually heard the cases concerned. Only in a few cases is the location absolutely clear. The important matter of settling the boundary between the Athonite monastic communities and their lay neighbours in the kastron of Hierissos, for instance, was mainly heard in Thessalonike; two documents from the archive of the Prôtaton dating from 942–3 indicate not only that the Athonites went there to bring a complaint against their neighbours, but also that delegations representing the two parties were called to the city to be heard by an court which numbered amongst its members the stratêgos Katakalon and the city’s archbishop, Gregory.7 This was obviously an important enough matter to demand the attention of the most senior thematic offi cials; the fact that the case was heard in Thessalonike is therefore not surprising. In other cases, however, the location of the court is clearly indicated and it is this kind of information that allows us to build up a picture of the movements of the thematic judges. In November 996, the prôtospatharios Nicholas, kritês of Strymôn, Thessalonike and Drougoubiteia, was to be found in Kassandreia in the Chalkidike, hearing a case concerning lands at Polygyros, some distance away it has to be said, although Kassandreia is the nearest sizeable town (see Map).8 The precise details of the case need not concern us, but the constitution of the court is interesting in itself. Nicholas was accompanied by the imperial episkeptitês and prôtospatharios Stephen, who perhaps acted as an expert advisor, since the matter concerned lands which had (wrongly, as it turned out) been granted by another episkeptitês, the monk Photios.9 With him, in the usual Byzantine (and indeed, Roman) fashion, sat thirteen assessors, all offi ce or rank-holders, including two bishops: Leo, Bishop of Kassandreia and 5 For the purposes of this article, the term kritês is taken to mean someone clearly engaged in judicial activity, not, as became increasingly common in the 11th c., a senior thematic administrator, see H. Saradi, The Byzantine tribunals: problems in the application of justice and state policy (9th-12th c.), REB 53 (1995): http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/rebyz_0766-5598_1995_num_53_1_1904 (accessed on 15.IV.2014), 173–4. 6 Actes d’Iviron, I, edd. J. Lefort, N. Oikonomidès, D. Papachryssanthou and H. Métrévéli, Archives de l’Athos, XIV, Paris 1985, no. 4 (July 982), ll. 29–31 and n. 9 (Dec. 995), ll. 20–22, where a δικαστήριον presided over by the prôtospatharios Nicholas, kritês of Strymôn and Thessalonike has been assembled to hear a serious property dispute (or the latest instalment of one) between the Monastery of John Kolobos (at Hierissos) and the villagers of Siderokausia, but we are not told where, and can only speculate that it took place at Hierissos.

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